I had dinner first, Alpha made something with wide noodles in three different colors, with zucchini and bits of ham, it was tasty so I calculated exactly how long it would take me to get where I needed to go and ate until the last possible minute. When I did my final Bat-Turn and parked in front of the dermatologist’s office it was exactly time for my appointment. Then I went into the waiting room and read a dog-eared women’s health and beauty magazine for the next quarter of an hour – “Affairs at the Company Christmas Party!” (two main points to the story, basically, “they’re bound to happen” and “if you tell it’s your own fault” which makes me consider sending one of the kids to Alpha’s office Christmas party this weekend) – until a mother came out with her pimply-faced teenage son and the doctor came out and summoned me inside.

I like medical personnel, nurses and doctors and physical therapists. Maybe that’s the reason I hang out with them so much. Or maybe it’s just some Stockholm Syndrome thing. You know, sometimes I wonder whether the Stockholm Syndrome doesn’t explain a whole lot of things, like the affection between parents and children too. This doctor I like because she doesn’t pretend to be an all-knowing omnipotent authority, like many male doctors in Austria and, I suspect, elsewhere. She got out her dog-eared little book of skin problems and read to me about Morbus Bowen, for example, and explained why what I have could be that, or three other things, in short: cancer, cancer, cancer or cancer.

I have, she said looking at my back, “eine unruhige Haut.”

“A restless skin.”

We might be changing those summer vacation reservations from Greece to Ireland in the future.

If it’s Morbus Bowen, she said, you can liquid nitrogen it off like the other doctor did last time. But if it’s option 2, 3 or 4 you could cut it out or burn it off as well. So we can freeze it off, or take a little core sample and make sure what it is. She showed me the little cookie cutters she uses. Immediately, I knew I had to try that. Yes, I said. Do the cookie cutter, I’ve never tried that before.

If I would’ve known we were doing the cookie cutter I woulda brought a ball gag or something. Dang.

It went like this – if you’re still reading this, by the way, may I ask why? Sheesh. So anyway, it went like this: guy face down on the table, looking away. Shot of something, some local anaesthetic. Guy wondering when she’s going to take the core sample – does she just stick it in and pull it out, or does she stick it in and turn it in a circle before pulling it out?

“Okay,” she said, “finished. Sit up carefully.”

Guy sits up.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, sure. Why?”

“It’s just, some people keel over afterwards.”

“Nah.”

“Yeah, I had a guy while back, I was typing something into the computer and he was sitting on that chair there and I didn’t realize he had a problem until I heard him hit the floor.”

“Heh.”

Two stitches.

“Your wife can take the stitches out in ten days,” she said.

Or my daughter. Beta might think this is cool, I thought. Or might she be totally grossed out? Hrm. I think it builds kids’ character to do odd things. “Here, Beta, clip the stitch here and pull it out. No! The other direction! Owowowow you’re pulling the knot through the scar!” This will require more thought.

Anyway. Sunscreen, kids.